POETRY REVIEW D H LAWRENCE TORTOISE FAMILY CONNECTIONS

An abandoned baby tortoise walks slowy past his own mother, who doesn’t even seem to notice him, let alone care that he has survived. The baby seems equally indifferent to her, as if there is no recognition of any family bond or connection at all. They might as well be separate species.

Lawrence experiments by picking up the new born infant and personally presenting him to his father, who snarls at it aggressively until Lawrence moves it away again. Brother and sister tortoises seem oblivious to the baby (and each other) and he couldn’t care less about them either. 

Lawrence finds the tortoise colony completely detached from family concern or social bonding. Lawrence looks on the infant as a solitary isolated atom, a new Adam, the only one of his kind.

Lawrence clearly envies the little tortoise for its arrogant individualism and total independence but lack of loniliness. The poet feels detached but desperately lonely in life.

Arthur Chappell